


Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy

by saltandrockets



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, M/M, Soft Kylux, Valentine's Day, benarmie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-27 18:33:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17772062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltandrockets/pseuds/saltandrockets
Summary: For Armitage Hux, Valentine’s Day is the worst day of the year.A florist, he creates beautiful flower arrangements to help romance bloom between other people—but his own love life is nonexistent.That changes when a needy customer starts calling the shop.





	Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy

**Author's Note:**

> my fill for the KyluxXoxo Valentine’s Day board! this story is based partly on my own experiences working in a flower shop.

For Armitage Hux, February thirteenth was the longest day of the year.

It always followed the same pattern. When he arrived at the flower shop at seven, two hours before they opened, the phone was blinking bright red, full of frantic messages. The printer had spat out a few dozen orders overnight, which had come through the website and had to be processed individually.

The phone hadn’t stopped ringing for more than a minute. On the other end of the line was another person (predictably, a man) who had somehow forgotten all about Valentine’s Day, despite the fact that it came at the same time each year.

They used to have someone to answer phones, process orders, prep flowers and sweep up while the designers focused on their arrangements. But then Finn got another job—one that “paid better” and “had benefits.” He abandoned them in the middle of their busiest time of year. Traitor.

Now, whenever the phone rang or a customer walked in or the mail carrier appeared, someone had to stop what they were doing and switch gears.

It wouldn’t be so bad, Armitage thought, if he weren’t somehow alone in the shop at the moment (except for an elderly woman examining a pair of kitschy salt and pepper shakers in the shape of chubby bluebirds).

Dopheld and Thannison were out delivering flowers—acceptable. Phasma had taken an extended lunch break—unacceptable. Cardinal’s whereabouts were uncertain, which was out of character for him and therefore doubly unacceptable.

Armitage was aggressively stripping roses of their thorns when the phone rang again.

For a moment, the shrill sound distracted him from the cloyingly sweet music floating through the flower shop. He was almost grateful: There were only about a dozen songs on the endlessly-looping Valentine’s Day playlist, and they were not permitted to change the music, per the orders of the owner, Snoke. Entirely against his will, Armitage had learned the words to multiple Michael Bublé songs, and they weren’t even covers of classics.

With a long-suffering sigh, Armitage wiped his hands on his apron and walked over to grab the phone.

“First Order Florist and Gifts,” he said. “This is Armitage. How can I help you?”

“Yeah. Hey. I need some flowers,” said a voice on the other end of the line. Young. Male. Uncertain. Armitage braced himself. “I, uh, tried to place an order on your website, but it wasn’t going through.”

“We’ve closed the site to new orders,” Armitage said. He did it as soon as he got in this morning. Frankly, he would’ve preferred to pull the plug late yesterday—they were buried under piles of tacky Teleflora arrangements that people ordered because they didn’t know any better. But Snoke was determined to squeeze in as many orders as humanly possible. “You realize that Valentine’s Day is tomorrow, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I know.” The guy sounded suitably ashamed, at least. “But you’ve got to help me out. I can’t show up tomorrow with nothing.”

Armitage suppressed a sigh. His customer service skills were a little rusty. “On such short notice, I’m afraid there’s not much—”

“I screwed up a lot this last year,” the customer went on, urgently. There was a hint of desperation in his voice. “Like, a lot. If she realizes I forgot Valentine’s Day on top of everything else, that’s it for me.”

_ Sounds like a beautiful relationship, _ Armitage thought, rolling his eyes. There were a few of these types during the major holidays: thoughtless, entirely unworthy men who thought dropping forty bucks on flowers at the last minute made up for making no gestures of affection during the rest of the year.

(Last year, a man called right before Mother’s Day to order flowers for his ex-wife, the mother of his children. He said he was trying to win her back. His budget was twenty dollars. Armitage almost hung up on him.)

“I just want to do one nice thing,” the guy went on, pitifully. “Get something right for once.”

For a moment, Armitage grappled with the dilemma. “Oh, all right,” he muttered at last, half to himself and half to the customer. He was getting soft. How embarrassing. “Let me see what I can do.” He grabbed a pad and pen. “Your name and contact information?”

“Ben Solo.” He rattled off his phone number and billing address—local.

“The recipient’s name and address?”

“Leia Organa,” Ben said. He spelled the name out when prompted.

“Our fresh flowers are mostly spoken for, I’m afraid,” Armitage said. “We have a few premade arrangements in the cooler that you could choose from. Or you could do a blooming plant basket, if you like—”

“What’s that?”

“A plant basket?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s a plant in a basket,” Armitage said in a flat voice. He missed Finn, that traitor, who was so good at fielding stupid questions. “They’re decorative.”

“That sounds good,” Ben said. “What kinds do you have?”

Armitage didn’t know off the top of his head, of course. That was supposed to be Finn’s job. Where was Dopheld when you needed him? “I’ll have to check,” he said through his teeth. “What’s your budget?”

“Doesn’t matter. Whatever’s nicest.”

Interesting. Ben must be really desperate. “One moment, please,” Armitage said, and put him on hold.

They kept the planet baskets on the other side of the shop, arranged artfully on tables and low shelves. He considered a modest basket of African violets—but that wouldn’t do. A single lily in a pot—attractive, but not quite right. Maybe for a different customer.

Finally, one caught his eye. He noted the flowers and the price, then returned to the phone.

“The best one,” Armitage said, “is an arrangement of hydrangeas, alstroemeria, spray roses and waxflower, with some ivy to fill it out—”

“What colors?” Ben asked.

Right. This was why Armitage didn’t work the phones. “Purple and green,” he said. “A little white. It comes in a woven basket with a handle.”

“Does it look good? I mean—do you like it?”

Armitage considered that. “It’s quite nice,” he concluded. Not terribly romantic, in his opinion, but classy. “It’ll look good on a table even after the holiday.”

“Then I’ll take it.”

“It costs ninety-four dollars and ninety-five cents,” Armitage warned. Even when they asked for the “best” option, sometimes customers didn’t realize that flowers were, in fact, expensive. Men were always balking at the price of a dozen roses, as if grand romantic gestures should come cheap.

“That’s fine,” Ben said immediately, which made Armitage raise his eyebrows, surprised by his lack of hesitation. “Hey, can I pick up the flowers instead of having them delivered?”

“Of course. But we close at five, so you’ll have to come before then. Now, what message would you like on the card?”

“Uh…” Ben hesitated.

“You can fill out a card when you come to the shop,” Armitage told him. Many people struggled to come up with a heartfelt sentiment on the spot—or at all. He added, somewhat gently, “She’ll like that it’s handwritten.”

“Yeah, okay. I’ll do that.” Ben sounded more confident now. Then he paused. “But there’s one more thing.”

“Yes?”

“Before you run that card, give me a few minutes to move some money around.”

Armitage squeezed his eyes shut against the beginnings of a headache. With these guys, he’d learned, there was always something. “I’ll wait half an hour to process the order,” he said. “Is that enough time?”

“Yeah,” Ben said. “That’ll be great.”

 

***

 

The elderly woman ended up buying the salt and pepper shakers; Armitage had to stop what he was doing to wrap them up for her. Then he sold an arrangement out of the cooler and a box of chocolates to a middle-aged man.

Miraculously, Dopheld reappeared, though Thanisson was still schlepping arrangements all over town. When Phasma deigned to return to the shop, she had the decency to bring both food and coffee, with mollified Armitage for the time being.

Cardinal turned up shortly after Phasma. Armitage still didn’t know where he’d been for the last two hours, but he was here now, and there was no time to interrogate him until after the holiday.

The phone was still ringing incessantly, and Michael Bublé was still singing in the background, but at least Dopheld was available to process orders in the moments between phone calls.

“First Order Florist and Gifts. This is Dopheld. How can I help you?” Dopheld paused, listening. “I’m sure I can help you, sir, if you—” A second, longer pause. “I’ll see if he’s available.”

Armitage was expertly plucking wilted, discolored and torn petals from now-thornless roses when Dopheld materialized at his elbow. He barely glanced up. “Yes?”

“There’s a customer on the phone for you,” Dopheld said.

“For me?” That didn’t sound right. “You’re sure?”

“He asked for you specifically.”

“You can’t help him?”

Dopheld looked apologetic. “He insisted.”

Armitage found that suspicious. Sighing through his nose, he went to the phone. “This is Armitage,” he said, leaning against the counter.

“Oh, good—you’re still there,” said the person on the other end of the line. “It’s Ben Solo. We talked a little while ago.”

“Yes, I remember,” Armitage said with a frown. “Is there something else you need?”

“Kind of. Do you have, like, gifts?”

Armitage took a cleansing breath. “This is a florist and gift shop,” he said, each word clear and distinct.

“Right. But do you have—I don’t know. Cute stuff?”

“We have stuffed animals,” Armitage said uncertainly. There was a rack of them on the other side of the shop, bright-eyed and soft. “Bears, elephants, little dogs. That sort of thing.”

“She loves dogs,” Ben said. “She has this little French bulldog. It hates me.”

_ Can’t imagine why, _ Armitage thought. “So you want to add a… stuffed dog to your order?”

“Yeah. The biggest one you have.”

“How much trouble are you in, exactly?” Armitage asked, before he could think to stop himself.

Ben laughed. “A lot,” he admitted. “Hey—what about candy?”

 

***

 

Half an hour before closing, Phasma shouted, “Armie, there’s a customer on the phone for you.”

“Can’t get it,” he called back immediately. He was rearranging buckets of flowers in the walk-in cooler and had hoped this activity would spare him from any further customer interaction. “Tell him I’m unavailable.”

The door opened just enough for Phasma to stick her head inside the cooler. She was surrounded by finished arrangements, addresses and cards attached, ready to go out first thing tomorrow. There were many more left to do. “He only wants to speak with you,” Phasma said, breath blooming in the cold air. “I put him on hold.”

Swearing colorfully, Armitage shoved a bucket of white roses under a shelf and stalked out of the cooler. Then he grabbed the phone and jabbed the blinking button. “This is Armitage,” he said through his teeth. “How can I help you?”

“It’s me again,” said the now-familiar voice of Ben Solo. He sounded a little sheepish.

“What is it this time?” Unprofessional, but Armitage was getting sick of this customer.

“I won’t be able to make it in today,” Ben said.

“You’ve got to be kidding.” It was a second before Armitage realized he’d said that out loud.

“Something came up,” Ben replied, defensively. “Can I pick up the flowers tomorrow?”

“We’re closed tomorrow,” Armitage told him.

“But someone will be in the shop, right? I mean, you’re going to be doing deliveries,” Ben said, his voice full of hope and despair in equal measures. “Come on. Please?”

Oh, for god’s sake.

Armitage rubbed at his eyes. He really was getting soft.

“If you knock on the door, I’ll let you in,” he said at last. In truth, he was sort of curious about Ben Solo. He wanted to know if the guy looked like the mental imagine he’d conjured up during their conversations. “But you have to come before three in the afternoon. Do you hear me?”

“Before three. Got it,” Ben promised. “You’re a lifesaver, Armie.”

“Armie?” he sputtered, but Ben had already ended the call.

 

***

 

If Armitage had to listen to that Michael Bublé song one more time, he was going to stab someone with his scissors. It would probably be Dopheld, unfortunately, though he’d done nothing to deserve it.

Armitage had been in the shop since five this morning, after managing only a little sleep last night. He probably wouldn’t leave until late this evening, long after the last flowers had arrived at their destinations.

He couldn’t wait for Valentine’s Day to be over.

There was a banging on the front door. Armitage frowned as he looked up from the Teleflora recipe in front of him; the shop was obviously closed. Whatever schmuck had forgotten to buy flowers could just go to Walmart and see what wilted bouquets were left.

Two people stood outside the glass storefront, one tall and one tiny. That was when he remembered his last conversation with Ben Solo.

“Is it that customer who’s fixated on you?” Phasma asked.

“Oh, probably,” Armitage said with a sigh and went to unlock the door.

Armitage wasn’t sure what he’d expected Ben Solo to look like, exactly, but it wasn’t this.

Dark-haired and sloe-eyed, he appeared to be in his late twenties. He was enormous: as tall as Armitage and about twice as broad, in a sweater that barely contained him. His jaw was shadowed with stubbed, like he hadn’t shaved in day or two.

All told, he was upsettingly handsome. Armitage was a little taken aback.

There was a girl with him, about twelve. She wore a puffy white jacket and her hair was done up in three lopsided buns. She looked too old to be Ben’s daughter, Armitage thought immediately. But maybe Ben was older than he looked. That, or he started extremely young.

“Ben Solo?” he asked, slowly, just to be sure.

“Armie,” Ben said with a grin. He sounded a little different in person than he did on the phone, but his voice was still recognizable. “We’re still on?”

“Of course. Come in.”

While Ben followed Armitage to the counter, the girl wandered over to the cooler, where the last of the prearranged flowers were displayed, as well as some single blooms. The arrangements were frothy and pretty, all pink and red and white.

“What’s this one called?” the girl asked, glancing over her shoulder as she pointed to a container full of bright green blooms. The flower heads were perfectly round: a fuzzy ball at the top of each long stem.

“Green dianthus,” Armitage told her. “Also called Sweet William.” He stepped behind the counter and hauled out Ben’s things, which he’d set aside yesterday: the massive flower basket, the stuffed animal, the box of chocolates.

Ben whistled when the items were lined up on the counter in front of him. “You weren’t kidding. This is really nice,” he said to Armitage. Then he turned and beckoned to the girl. “Rey, help me pick a card for Mom.”

While the girl shuffled over, Ben spun the little rack of cards on the counter with a thoughtful look on his face.

“Do you have anything less romantic?” Ben asked. “Since it’s for our mom, I mean.”

Armitage blinked. “This is for your mother?”

“Yeah. I don’t want to make it weird. I mean, she might laugh if we gave her this one,” Ben went on blithely, opening a card and then putting it back. “But I’m going for ‘thoughtful and respectable’ this year. It’s the new me.”

“We have some blank ones,” Armitage said, voice a little strangled. He ducked below the counter and rummaged around more than he probably needed to, mind whirling.

His mother? Not a girlfriend, or an ex-wife, or the estranged mother of his improbably-aged child?

Armitage had misjudged him. Ben Solo wasn’t a lousy partner. He was a mama’s boy with poor time management skills. By all accounts, he was trying to do better, and was succeeding only a little.

He also appeared to be single, or he wouldn’t be buying flowers only for his mother.

Interesting.

Armitage grabbed a few blank cards with different floral designs, straightened up and handed them to Ben. He also gave Ben a pen and a piece of scratch paper from the stack they kept behind the counter for just this purpose.

Rey didn’t hesitate to share her opinion. “This one,” she said, pointing to one of the cards.

“If you say so.” Ben tested the pen against the scratch paper, then began writing in the card. The pen looked comically small in his big hand, but his handwriting was surprisingly delicate. Finally, he spun the card toward Rey. “You sign it, too.”

She took the pen and scribbled her name, as well as a little cartoon bird that looked sort of like a penguin—an inside joke, possibly. “Can we get a balloon?” she asked her brother. “I bet Mom would like it.”

“Nah,” Ben told her. “We should get out of Armitage’s hair.”

“It’s no trouble,” Armitage heard himself say, despite the arrangements he still had to complete and get out the door, and the fact that he hated dealing with balloons.

Ben looked at him in surprise. His eyes were both dark and bright. “You’re sure?”

“Of course.” Armitage could hardly believe himself. Somehow, he managed to glance at Rey. “Go ahead and choose one.”

Ultimately, Rey picked a heart-shaped balloon, metallic and pink, which Armitage filled with helium and tied onto a white ribbon. For good measure, he tied a slip knot at the end and then put it around Rey’s wrist. Kids were terrible at holding onto balloons.

Ben paid cash for the balloon. Their hands brushed when Armitage handed back his change. Armitage found himself strangely aware of Ben’s skin, but only because Ben had just come in from the icy February air and his hands were still a little cold. That was all.

“Thanks,” Ben said, looking into Armitage’s eyes for longer than was strictly necessary. “You’re a lifesaver, seriously.”

“Think nothing of it,” Armitage heard himself bleat. Then, even worse, he added: “Do you need help getting your things to the car?”

It turned out that Ben did not need help. He gathered up the basket himself, instructed Rey to handle the plush dog and box of candy and headed out.

Ben glanced over his shoulder as he stepped out of the shop; humiliatingly, he caught Armitage looking at him. But he smiled, and despite his embarrassment, Armitage managed to offer one in return.

“What was that?” Phasma asked, as soon as the door had closed behind Ben and Rey.

“What?” Armitage asked, returning to the table where he’d been working on an arrangement.

Phasma pitched her voice into an unconvincing imitation of his. “‘Go on, small child, pick a balloon, it’s no trouble!’ Where did that come from?”

“I don’t sound like that,” Armitage said immediately.

She ignored him. “You never inflate the balloons,” she said. “You always make someone else do it. Who are you and what have you done with Armitage Hux?”

Cardinal looked similarly unsettled. “Is that the guy you were complaining about yesterday?”

“I have no idea what you mean,” Armitage lifted his chin.

“You kind of yelled at him the last time he called,” Dopheld replied.

Armitage frowned. “Shouldn’t you be sweeping right now?”

A little while later, when Armitage went to grab a stack of order confirmations off the printer tucked away near the phone, he noticed a piece of scratch paper on the counter. He picked it up, meaning to crumple and toss it, but paused when he saw there was a note.

_ Armie: Thanks for your help. Working tonight? — Ben _

Ben had jotted his phone number at the bottom of the note, as if Armitage didn’t already have it in the shop’s computer system, from when he placed the original order.

Not that Armitage would ever do something as unprofessional as contact a customer for personal reasons. Wouldn’t dream of it.

Of course, he didn’t have to now. Ben had saved him that particular moral dilemma.

 

***

 

“So how did she like the flowers?” Armitage had to raise his voice a little to be heard above the many-layered clamor of voices and music that filled the room.

“Can we not talk about my mom right now? Kind of a mood-killer,” Ben said, around a mouthful of food. Armitage couldn’t decide if he was charmed or not.

A while after Armitage found Ben’s note, he slipped outside for a few minutes to call him—just out of curiosity, of course. Nothing deeper than that. They arranged to meet for dinner later on.

Armitage accepted Ben’s invitation on a whim—but now that he was here, it felt awkward. What was he doing here? He didn’t even know this man.

It was Valentine’s Day and any decent restaurant was packed with people who’d expected to have dates, so they were at some seedy bar and grill called Maz’s Castle. How romantic. Apparently Ben’s father knew the owner, which caused a booth to miraculously become available when they arrived.

Armitage shifted a little on the cracked plastic seat. One of his feet accidentally bumped against Ben’s, under the table, so he pulled his legs closer to his side of the booth. “What do you want to talk about, then?”

Ben smiled, not unkindly, like that was a funny question. “How’d you get to be a florist?” he asked. “I kind of wondered. Is there, like—flower college?”

“There are technical programs, yes,” Armitage said crisply. “But I didn’t go through one. I didn’t even mean to start working in this business.”

Ben was smiling wider now. He leaned forward slightly, elbows on the table, seeming somehow too big for the space he occupied. “How do you accidentally become a florist?”

“I just needed a job,” Armitage told him. Any job would’ve done. He was just out of college, dead broke, with bills to pay. “I walked into a flower shop and asked if they needed a driver—to make deliveries, you know. The owner said she didn’t need drivers, but she did need floral designers.” He still remembered how Rae had looked at him then: less pitying, more assessing. “I said I could learn.”

“And she hired you?”

“Well, I also said I’d work for free until I was good enough to get paid, which sweetened the deal a bit,” Armitage admitted. He was that desperate. (Rae had pretended to agree to this, but at the end of the first week, she handed him a check and said she didn’t pay people in experience.)

“But it worked out,” Ben said.

“It did,” Armitage agreed. He worked for Rae for years, until she had the accident and Snoke bought the shop.

There was a pause, the two of them studying each other from opposite sides of the table. Ben had a distracting number of moles scattered across his face, which Armitage would never have envisioned while they were on the phone. Armitage moved his foot again, experimentally, but the only thing he bumped into was the table leg.

“She did like them,” Ben said suddenly. “The flowers, I mean. She was really impressed. You have good taste.”

“In flowers?” Armitage raised his eyebrows. He already knew he did, of course.

“And other things. I mean, you did call me,” Ben said with a smile. “I wasn’t sure if you would. Figured you were probably sick of me.”

“Only because you kept interrupting my work,” Armitage told him. “But I’m off the clock now. I think this is the first time I’ve gotten out of the shop before nine on Valentine’s Day.”

Ben whistled. “You’re that slammed?”

“It’s our busiest time of year,” Armitage said primly, sipping his drink, and it was true. That was true. It was also true that Armitage generally didn’t have anyone special to see on Valentine’s Day, so he could work late while other people left to spend time with their partners.

“In that case, I’m flattered,” Ben said.

Armitage snorted. “Don’t be.”

“You go to dinner with a lot of random customers, then?”

“No one’s ever asked, except for you.”

Ben blinked. “You’re kidding.”

“This may come as a shock,” Armitage told him, “but most people buying flowers for Valentine’s Day are already in a relationship.”

“Wait—is that what you thought, when I called yesterday?” Ben asked, eyes widening as it clicked. “That I was buying flowers for a girlfriend or something?”

Armitage felt his cheeks grow warm. “The thought crossed my mind,” he said. “It sounded like you were making up for some horrible transgression, the way you kept calling back to add onto the order.”

Ben huffed a laugh. “Well, I was, kind of,” he said. Then he paused, studying Armitage in the low light. “But I also liked talking to you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah. Your voice. Also, you were nice about the whole thing, even though I was an idiot,” Ben said, a bit sheepishly.

Armitage almost laughed. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had accused him of being nice. “Well,” he said. “I sort of started to root for you, after a while.”

“Oh, yeah?” This time, when Ben flashed a grin, Armitage smiled back automatically. He couldn’t help it. “Still rooting for me?”

“You might say that,” Armitage replied. Feeling bold, he shifted his foot under the table again and succeeded in bumping against Ben’s boot.

Ben nudged back. “Tell me you don’t have to work tomorrow,” he said in a low voice.

“I don’t.” Armitage always took February fifteenth off, because he felt he deserved it. Normally, he spent his day off eating discounted candy. But this year, he might spend it doing something else. He felt himself smiling wider. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”

**Author's Note:**

> green dianthus looks [like this](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/0a/72/2a/0a722a69a79539534b326a328bc290b8.jpg) and I love it.
> 
> \--
> 
> thank you for reading! come visit me [on tumblr](http://saltandrockets.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/saltandrockets).


End file.
